The Dead Letter: An American Romance

by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

The next morning James returned home; but I remained in the city several days, all this time the guest of Mr. Burton, and becoming more attached to him and his beautiful child. After the first day, Lenore recovered pretty rapidly from the ill effects of the trance; I was, as the ladies say, “perfectly charmed” with her. A gayer, more airy little sprite never existed than she, when her health permitted her natural spirit to display itself. Her grace and playfulness were befitting her age—childish in an eminent degree, yet poetized, as it were, by an ethereal spirituality, which was all her own. To hear her sing would be to wonder how such a depth and hight and breadth, such an infinity of melody, could be poured from so young and slender a throat—as I had often wondered, when gazing at the swelling breast of some little triumphant bird, where was hidden the mechanism for all that marvelous power of music.

It is said that children know who are their true friends. I do not think that “flitting, fairy” Lenore doubted for an instant that I was hers. We acknowledged a mutual attraction, which it seemed to give her father pleasure to observe. She was, to both of us, a delight and a rest, to which we looked forward after the vexations and disappointments of the day—vexations and disappointments which increased upon us; for every night we had the dissatisfaction of finding some slender thread of probability, which we had industriously unraveled and followed, either abruptly broken off, leaving us standing, perplexed and foolish, or else leading to persons and purposes most irrelevant. I should dislike to say how many pale, dark-eyed young women, with pretty babies, made our unexpected acquaintance during the following week—an acquaintance as brief as it was unsolicited on their part.

CHAPTER X.
THE ANNIVERSARY.

I have said that I expected Mr. Argyll to offer me a partnership, now that I was prepared to begin my legal career. In this I was not presumptuous, inasmuch as he had frequently and plainly hinted his intention. Such an arrangement would be a desirable one for me; I appreciated its many advantages; at the same time, I expected, by taking all the hard work upon myself, and by the constant devotion of such talent as I had to the interests of the firm, to repay, as far as possible, my obligations to the senior member.

When I returned from New York, I appeared in court with a case which had chanced to be intrusted to me, perhaps from the inability of my client to employ an older and more expensive lawyer. I did well with it, and was complimented by several of Mr. Argyll’s fraternity upon my success in handling the case. Much to my surprise and mortification, Mr. Argyll’s congratulations were in constrained and studied terms. He had appeared to be more formal, less open in his manner of treating me, ever since my last visit to the city. At first I thought it my fancy, or caused by some temporary ill-health, or mental trouble, under which he might be laboring. Day by day the impression deepened upon me that his feelings toward me were not what they had been. The plainest proof I had of this was, that no offer of partnership was made. I was placed in a disagreeable situation for one of my proud temperament. My studies completed to the point where admission to practice had been granted, I had nothing to do but continue in his office, reading, reading away—not but that my time was most usefully employed thus, and not that I was in any great hurry to go into business, though my income was narrow enough, and I knew that my mother had pinched her domestic arrangements to afford me that—but I began to feel like an intruder. My ostensible use of his books, office, and instructions was at an end; I began to feel like a hanger-on. Yet I could not go away, or offer to associate myself with others, hastily. I felt that he ought either to put in execution his implied promise, or to inform me that he had changed his plans, and I was free to try elsewhere.

Can any invalid tell me why he feels a prescience of the storm in his aching bones and tingling nerves while the sun still shines in a cloudless sky, and not one hint on the outward face of nature tells of a change in the weather? Neither can I explain the subtle influences which affected me, depressing me so deeply, and making me sensible of a change in that atmosphere of home which had brooded for me over the Argyll mansion. I had felt this first in the more business air of the office; gradually, it seemed to me to be creeping over the household. Mary, that sweet child of impulse, too young to assume much dignity, and too truthful to disguise her innocent face in falsehood, who had clung to me in this affliction as a sister clings to an elder brother, awakening all my tenderest instincts of protection and indulgence—this fair girl, doubly dear to me as the sister of that other woman whom I adored, began to put on an air of reserve toward me. She was kind and gentle, but she no longer ran to me with all those pretty demands and complaints, those trifling confidences, so sweet because an evidence of trust and affection; sometimes I caught her eyes fixed upon me in a sad, wondering way, which puzzled and disconcerted me; when I caught her glance, she would turn quickly, and blush.

I could not help believing, although I had no proof of it, that James was covertly working to produce an impression against me in the family. His manner toward me had never been so friendly; when we were alone together he grew quite confidential, sometimes descending to small flatteries, and almost entirely neglecting the use of those little nettles of satire with which he once delighted in stinging me whenever any one whom I esteemed was present. I could not pick a quarrel with him, had I desired it. Yet I could not rid myself of the consciousness that he was undermining my footing in the house of those friends I loved best. In what manner, it was difficult for me to conjecture. If he slandered my habits or associations, nothing could be easier than for Mr. Argyll to quietly ascertain, by inquiries unknown to myself, the truth of his statements; justice to me would require that he should take that trouble before he cast off, as unworthy his further kindness, the son of his dead friend. I could think of but one matter which he could use to my prejudice; and in that my conscience accused me loudly enough. I said to myself that he had told them of my love for Eleanor. He had torn that delicate and sacred secret from my heart, where it lay under the pitying light of God’s eye alone—discovered it through hate and jealousy, which are next to love in the keenness of their perceptions—and exposed it to those from whom I had most shrinkingly hidden it. Even then, why should they blame me, or treat me coldly, for what I could not help, and for which I alone must suffer? Certainly not for my presumption, since I had not presumed. One dreadful idea preyed upon me. It was, that, in order to rid himself of me for ever, to drive me out from the friendship of those whom he wanted to himself, for his own selfish aims, James was representing to them not only that I loved Eleanor, but that I was looking forward to the future with hopes which mocked her present desolation.

I can not describe the pain and humiliation this idea gave me. If I could have discovered it, or in any way denied it, I should not have felt so hurt and helpless. As it was, I felt that my honor was being stabbed in the dark, without a chance to defend itself—some secret enemy was wounding it, as some base assassin had planted that deadly wound in the heart of Henry Moreland.

In the mean time, the Christmas holidays were approaching. It was a season of gloom and mourning, mocked by the merry preparations of happier people. On the twenty-third day of December came Eleanor’s nineteenth birthday. It was to have been her wedding-day. A glorious winter morning dawned; the sun shone in a sapphire sky; it seemed as if every plant in the conservatory put forth double bloom—the japonicas, the white roses, were incomparable. I could not help but linger about the house. Eleanor kept herself in her room. If every word which refers to her were written in tears, it could not express the feelings with which we all were moved with the thought of her bereavement. We moved about like people in dreams, silent and abstracted. The old housekeeper, when I met her on the stairs, was wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron. Mr. Argyll, unquiet and pale, wandered from room to room. The office remained closed; the front blinds of the house were shut—it was like the day of the funeral.

I went into the conservatory; there was sunshine there, and sweetness—a bright luxuriance of beauty. It was more solemn to me than the darkened parlors. I plucked a white rose, holding it idly in my fingers. It was half-past eleven—at twelve the ceremony should have been performed. Mary came in while I stood there wrapped in emotion more than thought. Her eyes were swollen with weeping, her hands trembled, and when she spoke, her lips quivered: